Monday, November 05, 2012

U. S. candidates avoid talk on poverty; Part II

The candidates for the U.S.
presidential election have focused on the issues important to the middle class,
and senior citizens. They do that because those two groups vote in the largest
numbers. So talk of poverty and the poor rarely occurs in the campaign, because
those who are poor vote in small percentages. What should be one of our
most important issues gets little attention just because of polling numbers.

The last time poverty was a major issue in presidential politics was the 1960s, when President Lyndon B. Johnson instituted a national War on Poverty and Robert Kennedy made a poverty tour in Mississippi.
While Mr. Obama’s health-care reforms could have a profound impact on
the poor – and were clearly designed to help them – they were often
couched in terms designed to appeal to the middle class.

Partly, that is because of what Mr. Johnson’s Great Society achieved.
The programs led to a dramatic reduction in the poverty rate down to
about 14 percent by the 1970s. While the rate has not declined since
then, it has not gone up much, either, meaning the poor remain a
significant minority of the population. Today’s rate fluctuates between
14 and 16 percent, says Professor Parker.

In addition, the poor consistently vote at much lower levels than other groups, says James Henson, a political scientist at the University of Texas in Austin.
“People with low incomes have a harder time finding the time and
getting out to vote,” he says. “They tend to be less directly engaged,
and they have less political information pushed to them.”

Voting participation among the poor could decline further if voter ID
requirements percolating in many red states become law, Professor Henson
and other experts say. The obvious conclusion for campaign strategists:
Why cater to populations that vote less?

...

We also found this iten near the end of the article very important. Superstar economist Jeffery Sachs weighed in on how even the voices of the middle class is quited during the campaign.

“It’s
a serious distortion of our political process,” he says. “In a
two-party system the poor might get neglected anyway because of an aim
for the middle class. But in our political system even the middle class
is relatively neglected to the interests of the affluent. They pay for
the campaigns.”

Despite pronounced philosophical differences in
how to address poverty, both parties are motivated by money, Sachs says.
That leads to an unwillingness to advocate policies that could hit the
wealthy too hard.